San Francisco Minstrels

“After searing one’s eyeballs—to say nothing of one’s soul—over the gas and tinsel of the ‘Black Crook,’ the fevered spirit longs for rest and change. The tired worldling, stunned and satiated with the brazen improprieties of the ballet, finds softest soothing in the cool and reposeful blackness of the sweet singers of San Francisco, looking, as they range along the stage in sable uniformity, with infrequent relief of ivory teeth or dazzling shirt-front, like a gigantic keyboard, with predominance of flats, playing on itself. If not very unsound on the Fifteenth Amendment, he will rejoice to recognize beneath these swart complexions the accordant souls of melodious men and brothers, and will find hearty enjoyment in the excellent glee and four-part singing of Messrs. Templeton, Oberist, Wambold, and Dwyer, spiced with the comicalities of the ‘end men,’ Messrs. Birch and Backus.

“The plantation song proper has long since gone where the woodbine twineth, and the sentimental melody grows in its place. The gentlemen who, like Hamlet, wear sables, and

----‘think meet

To put an antic disposition on’

for the better prosecution of their designs on the public purse, are frequently very tasteful of composers and musicians in a legitimate way. Many a charming air, since come to general favor, originally issued from the very jaws of darkness, so to speak, into the upper empyrean of whiter circles. In such melodies, the rich tenor voices and delicate feeling and execution of Messrs. Templeton and Wambold are especially effective, and one would willingly see the sentimental part of the programme prolonged at the expense of the burlesque portion.”

“SAN FRANCISCOS.—‘Les Brigands’—a stunning burlesque operetta, much finer than its original, with living pictures of Dr. Livingstone’s African cabinet—draws roars of laughter and shouts of applause from crowded houses at the San Franciscos this week. The silver-voiced Wambold sings the ‘Daisy Valley,’ and receives even more than the usual number of encores; while ‘Carry de News,’ by Charlie Backus, awakes the most intense enthusiasm in the galleries. Billy Birch and Mr. Bernard achieve their greatest success in the characters of Carbineers de Terrapin and de Beans, while the balance of the company come in for a large share of the ‘Morning Glory’ set for two.”